CHAPTER X.

MILLY INQUIRES.

One day in the time of Reynolds' absence at General DeKay's, White came down to Birmingham in his cart and Milly insisted so strenuously on accompanying him, that she had her way. This led to an adventure of a sort likely to impress itself deeply in the mind of an unsophisticated girl of the mountains. She had given no especial reason for wishing to visit the city, but White shrewdly guessed that her desire to know something of the whereabouts of Reynolds was the motive impelling her to so unusual an undertaking, for heretofore she had always been very averse to going into Birmingham.

When they reached town White gave Milly a pittance of money and said:

"You go ter some store, Milly, an' buy ye some candy er a apple er somethin' er other. When ye git tired er foolin' eround ye kin go back ter the cyart an' stay ther' tell I come."

She took the small pieces of silver without a word and allowed her father to desert her. She suspected that he meant to deceive her and go off to some gambling den; but she did not care. Her desires all centered in finding Reynolds or hearing something about him.

She strolled about from place to place in the street, innocently staring into men's faces and quite as innocently receiving, without shrinking, such brutal leers and winks as certain of the bejeweled and over-dressed loafers bestowed in return. She went into a store now and then, but, instead of asking for any article of merchandise, she invariably propounded the question:

"I wanted ter ax ef ye hed seed any thing o' John Reynolds 'bout this yer town?"

She spoke with such confiding earnestness of manner and with such an appealing light in her eyes and such music in her voice, that she attracted immediate attention from whomever she addressed. She received respectful answers from the tradesmen. None of them knew any thing about Reynolds, but some of them, touched in a sweet, indefinite way by the inexpressible half-lisp of her childish voice, and feeling the influence of her strange, yearning face and graceful form, tried to draw her into conversation only to discover that she became dumb so soon as she learned that they could not give her what she sought. She turned solemnly away from each one and left him to struggle out of the bewilderment she had unconsciously cast over his mind.

With absolutely no knowledge of the difference between a reputable business street and a row of dives, she drifted here and there until finally she met a man whom she at once recognized as Moreton, although in fact he was a drummer for a wholesale liquor house of Atlanta. She placed herself resolutely in his way, as he was about to pass her, and said:

"Air ye the feller 'at come to our house thet day?"

The man, a tall fellow, not unlike Moreton physically, looked down at this pleasing apparition, and for want of better response, said:

"What day?"

"Thet air day 'at hit rained so, an' ye tuck dinner, an' staid all day. Don't ye 'member?"

"Can't recollect you, sis: seems like I ought to though, by George. What's your name?" He took hold of the brim of her coarse hat and lifting it a little peeped under at her face, now suddenly pink with blushing.

"Ye know--I'm Mr. White's girl, up ther' wher' ye fotch the turkeys thet air rainy day."

"Oh, yes, I do recollect mighty well now, certainly. I fetched the turkeys, yes. You are White's girl. I'm real glad to see you. How's the folks?" said he, glibly.

"We're all well," responded Milly. "I wushed to ax ye ef ye've seed John Reynolds lately."

"John Reynolds--John Reynolds, which John Reynolds do you mean?" he inquired, with a show of having a dozen men of that name in his mind.

"Hit air Colonel Reynolds, es pap calls 'im, an' he lives at our house, an' ye know ye said he wer' yer bes' frien' an' 'at he wer' a grand feller. Don't ye 'member? Well, I wush to see him."

"Any thing of a furious rush about seeing him right off--eh?" He stooped low enough to look into her strange beautiful eyes. "What do you want to see him about?"

She shrank uneasily and made no answer. Her pink lips quivered slightly, as a flower's petals do when one breathes upon them. The man's breath was foul with the fumes of whisky.

"Oh, if it's private--if it's a secret between you," he resumed, "why, of course, I don't intend to pry in; but as Reynolds and I are chums, I don't see why you won't tell me."

"I wushed to see 'im, that's all," she responded in a plaintive, hesitating voice, putting a finger in her mouth and scraping the toe of one coarse shoe back and forth on the ground.

"Oh, I guess that he's rather keeping sort o' shady from you, just now," said the man with a brutal smile. "He's got him another girl now, he's not caring about seeing you very soon. I know what he's up to."

She shot a quick, almost wild look into his face, stared at him a moment and then slowly inquired:

"What air yer name?"

He actually reddened with confusion, and was at a loss what to answer. He saw that she had discovered his deceit.

"I was just joking," he managed to say. "Never mind my jokes. If you'll come with me I'll take you to Reynolds. He's just down here a little ways. Come on, I'll show you."

"Ye'r' not thet man--ye'r'----"

"Oh, that's nothing: I was just fooling with you. Don't get mad. If you get mad you'll not have any luck. Come on if you want to see Reynolds."

Her eyes had assumed a vague, distressed look and her lips quivered again.

"I wush ye'd go tell 'im 'at I wush he'd come on home," she said, glancing uneasily around, as if afraid that some one would approach.

"Guess you'd better go see him and surprise him like. He won't be expecting you. He's just down here a little piece. Come on, if you are going, I can't fool around all day," the man urged, an ugly gleam getting into his eyes and his face showing its coarsest lines.

"John wouldn't like hit ef I'd go ther' wher' he is," she responded. "I hain't got no business a goin' down ther'. I'd be erbleeged ef ye'd tell 'im----"

"Tell him nothing," gruffly rejoined the man. "Come along, it's not far, he'll be all right; he's a good fellow and not going to make any fuss--come on. I'll stand between you and all danger--come on."

"I don't wanter go, an' I haint er goin', an' ye mought as well quit er talkin'," she almost doggedly replied, taking a step or two back from him. He followed her with a devilish leer in his eyes.

The street was a disreputable one and there was a narrow alley near where they stood.

"He's not caring any thing about you now; you needn't be so shy, I'm not going to do you any harm. I'm the best friend you've got."

Her strange, troubled face brightened a little.

"Then, ef ye'r' my friend," she quickly said, "go an' tell 'im at I wush he'd please kem home."

The man laughed, looked at her quizzically for a time, and then in a tone, half of vexation and half of amusement, said:

"Well, if you aren't the dangedest curiosity I ever saw! You ought to travel with Barnum."

He gazed at her intently from head to foot, his face softening.

"You've no business trotting around loose in these suburbs," he muttered, more to himself than to her, then quite _solus_ he added: "She's cracked: she's an idiot."

Her vague troubled look now appealed to the other side of the man's nature. "Do you know where you are? This is no place for you; where do you live?" He put his inquiries in a voice so different from that half-wheedling, half brutal one hitherto used, that she instantly looked up with a gleam of trust in her eyes.

"Where is your home?" he continued.

"Over to the tother side o' the mounting, at Mr. White's," she frankly answered.

"Well, what are you doing down here among these saloons and dives? Why don't you go home and stay with your mother? This is a bad place for you."

"I hain't er feared," she said; "I er a goin' down yer ter pap's cyart. Pap an' me we kem ter town tergether. I jist stopped ter ask yer ef ye'd seed John, that wer' all I keered about ye. Ye needn't er be a frettin' yerself 'bout me."

The man chuckled in a puzzled way and walked on, muttering to himself something about the "dangedest prettiest idiot" that he ever saw. He looked back a time or two to watch Milly as she carelessly strolled along, her petite form showing its lithe, wild grace, with every movement and her wisp of yellowish hair shining under her hat and straying down over the back of her loose cotton gown. His eyes had something of the wistful glare with which a cat gazes at an escaped bird.

Milly found her father's cart under a tree in the outskirts of the town, the one kind-eyed, long-horned little ox contentedly ruminating between the rude shafts.

"W'y, ole Ben, air ye tired er waitin'?" she exclaimed, patting the bony little fellow on the shoulder, "we'll be er goin' soon es pap comes, won't we, Ben?"

She climbed into the shallow box of the cart and sat down on its bottom with her head thrown back so that she could gaze up through the tree-tops at the bright blue sky. A breeze, cool and sweet, was stealing down from the mountains rustling the few dry leaves that still clung to the branches overhead. She sang, in a thin childish falsetto, snatches of the simple hymn-tunes she had caught from her parents; but she got the words together in a meaningless confusion. Her conception of a song of any sort rose no higher than a consciousness of the pleasing sounds of the voice singing it.

For a long while she waited patiently, now and then glancing down the unkempt street to see if her father had yet come in sight; then she stood up in the cart and looked. It was growing late. The sun was slipping down behind the mountains and a cooler breath crept through the valley.

"Well, Ben, hit air no use er stayin' yer any longer, I 'spec' at pap he air drunk. Git erp ther', Ben!"

She had gathered up the rope guiding line and the gad that lay in the box, and as she finished speaking she tapped the ox and drove away, heading for the road that led homeward. The thought that her father was drunk seemed not to affect her in any way. She soon resumed her singing, and her aimless, wistful gazing at the splendid Southern sky.

It was long after night-fall, but the moon was shining brightly, when Milly drove up to the little front gate at home, and freeing Ben from his yoke and shafts, turned him loose to browse on the mountain-side. Her mother met her at the door.

"Wher' air yer pap?" was the laconic inquiry.

"Drunk, I 'spec'," was the answer.

"An' er playin' of keerds," suggested Mrs. White.

"Yes, I 'spec'."

"Well, ef hit air seving up 'at he air a playin' ther' air sense to hit, fer he gin'rally wa'ms their low down gam'lin' hides fer 'em, w'en hit air seving up 'at he plays; but ef he goes in on ter any er them tother games, he'll come home 'ithout ary cent inter his pockets, mind what I tell ye."

"I wush John 'd come home, that's what I wush," murmured Milly, opening the door of Reynolds' room and going in to wander listlessly about among his things. She touched his books, his pencils, his brushes, his pen, and lingered about the easel upon which the dog sketch still rested unfinished.

It was nearly midnight when White came in good-humoredly drunk, boasting of another victory at "seving up with them air gam'lers." His wife had gone to bed, but Milly met him with her usual quiet welcome and the formula expressing her predominant "wush."

"Ye needn't er be 'spectin' the Colonel home for a week, Milly," he said, as he lighted his pipe for a sobering smoke before retiring; "fer he's gone away down on the Al'bam' River to Gen'l DeKay's to a huntin' frolic with banker Noble an' his darter."

Nothing save the very unusual amount of whisky he had been taking could have induced White to say that and in such a tone. Milly looked at him in a dazed, stupid way, her cherry underlip falling as if from the weight of the information she had received.

"Do he go wuth them air fine folks?" she presently inquired, in a dry, doleful voice.

"Ye'd think so ef ye'd see 'im," he answered. "He air high dinky davy along of the best of 'em, I tell ye. Him an' that feller Moreting what wer' here that rainy day do scoot aroun' with them air silks an' ribbons an' jew'lry alarmin' to the saints."

Milly put her hands together and rested them on her head with their fingers intertwined. She appeared to be considering some troublesome proposition.

"Do ye s'pose them folks'll make fun of we-uns to 'im?"

White chuckled.

"I don't keer airy dam ef they do," he said, contemptuously snapping his thumb and finger. "Let 'em sail in."

"Well I wush 'at they wouldn't. 'Tain't none er the'r business 'bout how we-uns looks, no how," she quickly replied. She looked over her faded cotton dress as she spoke, with a hurried, dissatisfied glance. She had seen some wonderful dresses in Birmingham.

"No, hit tain't the'r business, thet's a fac', Milly," he responded, ramming his pipe with his finger and wagging his head. "'Tain't store clo's, an' jew'ls an' sich 'at meks folks honest an' 'spectable, hits in yer, Milly, in yer," tapping his breast. "We'r' jest as good as any body, hain't we, Milly?"

"Spec' so; dunno," she said, looking dully at him. "I wush he had er staid yer an' kep' away f'om down ther'."

"Hit air p'int blank no use er wushin' thet, Milly," he slowly and firmly declared, "fur he air dead sot onto 'em an' he air a goin' wi' 'em. In fac', he air them sort er folks his own self, he air, Milly."

The girl's eyes slowly brimmed with big tears, and without further words she crept off to bed. White sat and smoked in a gloomy way for a long while, his face showing more than usually gaunt and wrinkled in the dim light of the flickering pine knots on the hearth. He shook his head from time to time, as if dissatisfied with such results as his thoughts produced. Once he spoke out rather fiercely.

"Hit air a dern shame!" he exclaimed, in a voice so fierce and bitter that it awoke his wife. And yet he was too simple-minded to dream of the worst. With the queer pride of the mountaineer, he was viewing the predicament simply from a social standpoint.